


Cold

by sunlight-and-storms (all_i_see_is_sky)



Category: Keeper of the Lost Cities Series - Shannon Messenger
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, No beta we die like Kenric, Set During Flashback
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25193185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/all_i_see_is_sky/pseuds/sunlight-and-storms
Summary: Shadows are cold.Tam knows that, has since he manifested. They’re cold and smooth and not-quite-solid, something dark and intangible just out of reach. But he understands them, so he can control them.He can’t control these.
Relationships: Tam Song/Fitz Vacker
Comments: 9
Kudos: 18





	Cold

Shadows are cold.

Tam knows that, has since he manifested. They’re cold and smooth and not-quite-solid, something dark and intangible just out of reach. But he understands them, so he can control them. 

He can’t control these.

The first time he tries, he’s halfway to a panic attack, rushing over from Tiergan’s house as soon as Elwin hails him. He’s just glad he can do something, anything, glad he’s not as useless as he felt when he’d heard the news.

Except he is, because he can’t help. The shadows slip through his fingers, more sinisterly liquid than anything else. Tam pulls at them helplessly, watching them slither up and around Fitz’s heart, and something in his gut clenches.

All around the room, the shadows stretch longer, moving towards Tam. Their chill is familiar, comforting. A bit of normal in this utterly incomprehensible situation. 

Slowly, he wraps the darkness around the odd shadows that have embedded themselves in Fitz’s chest. Slowly, he lifts them up, relying on his control of the normal shadows to do the work. Slowly, slowly, afraid of what may happen if this goes wrong, Tam pushes them away from the sedated boy on the cot. 

They slither away into the corners of the Healing Center, and Tam shivers. 

Shadows are cold, and so is the room. 

/-/-/-/

The room is cold.

Tam wakes up with a start, confused by the temperature until he remembers where he is. He’s not sure how long he slept, but a cursory glance at the room shows that nothing’s changed. Elwin’s rattling around in his office, Foxfire’s quiet outside the door, and Sophie and Fitz are still asleep. 

If _asleep_ is even the right word. _Sedated_ sounds too cool, _senseless_ , too harsh. Comatose, perhaps?

Whatever the word, the unnatural calm scares him.

Tam stands up and stretches, moving over to Fitz’s cot before he can stop himself. Fitz is lying still, but his face is twisted into an expression of pain that even sedatives can’t fix. Tam bites his lip and looks away, reaching out a hand to feel for any more of the weird shadows. They seem to be gone, thank goodness, although there’s a strange chill to the area around Fitz’s heart that Tam doesn’t quite like. 

He flops into a chair and pushes his bangs out of his face, turning to look at the other boy. Which is probably creepy, but Tam doesn’t really care; it’s strangely therapeutic to watch his chest rise and fall, a sure sign that he’s _alive,_ at least. 

After a few minutes, Tam moves away from the bed- watching Fitz is calming, but he’s not sure how much he can do it without it being really weird. He’s about to head over to the cafeteria and see if they have any food when someone behind him makes a small noise. 

Tam spins around just in time to see Fitz’s eyes open, staring at the ceiling in a confused way. 

“Ow,” he says. Tam rushes over and he blinks. “Tam? What- happened?”

Tam opens his mouth to respond, but before he can say _you got attacked by creepy shadows and I’ve been waiting in the Healing Center for eighteen hours for you to wake up,_ Elwin sticks his head out of his office. 

“Fitz is awake? The sedatives wore off already?” Tam nods and Elwin mutters something that might be a curse, turning back to his office. He exits with a glass vial containing an elixir a frightening shade of green. “Okay, drink this.”

Fitz takes the bottle. “Is this going to make me go to sleep again?” When Elwin nods, he pushes it away. “No, thank you.”

“I know how you’re feeling,” Elwin says. “Sophie tells me her opinions on sedatives every time she’s in here. But your bones need to mend themselves, and they’ll do that faster if you’re not awake.”

Fitz sighs and uncorks the vial, bringing it to his lips. He holds it there for a moment, meeting Tam’s eyes with an emotion Tam can’t quite name. Then he downs the elixir and passes out again. 

Tam releases a long breath and sits back down, grabbing Fitz’s hand almost out of instinct. It feels like a piece of ice. 

The room is cold, and so is Fitz. 

/-/-/-/

Fitz is cold. 

He keeps shivering in his sleep, tossing back and forth no matter how many blankets Elwin piles on top of him. Tam’s not sure, but he and Lady Zillah think it’s the echoes, some faraway pain reaching him even sedated. 

Tam hates it. It makes Fitz seem small, unprotected, and he’ll do anything to fight the chill. He’s about to get another blanket when the Vackers show up.

They’ve been coming once or twice a day since the accident, faces pale and eyes red. Quietly, Biana has told him that they can’t be here all the time since her parents are going forward with the high-maintenance job of moving Alvar to Everglen. Something had made Tam scowl at that- Fitz is their _son,_ the son who didn’t betray them, and they can’t even be bothered to stay?

But looking at them now, with their rumpled clothes and tear-stained cheeks, Tam’s anger is fading away. They look _terrible,_ like they haven’t slept in centuries. Della rushes to her son immediately, grabbing his hand. Alden follows her and stands by the cot, casting a look at the sleeping Sophie on the room’s other side. She woke up two days ago, but Elwin is making her sleep far more than she usually does. Tam thinks this is probably smart, since Sophie, from what he can tell, simply Does Not sleep. Alden turns to Elwin. 

“Any change?”

Elwin shakes his head, glasses slipping precariously down his nose. “No. His bones are mending, though slower than I’d like. And Lady Zillah believes we’ll only be able to fight the echoes once he’s awake. She’s working with Tam to control shadowflux right now.”

Alden turns to Tam, fixing him with a look Tam can’t quite decipher. “Hmm. What about Sophie?”

Elwin launches into an explanation of the elixirs he’s using and Biana appears in the corner next to Tam. He jumps. 

“Don’t _do_ that.”

Biana gives him a halfhearted smile and says, “Sorry. Bad habit. How’s Fitz doing?”

Tam bites his lip. “Okay, I think. He’s shivering a lot, but that’s probably just a side effect of the echoes. Elwin says he’s making progress, though, so that’s good.”

“Yeah.” Biana stares at him in a way uncannily similar to her father’s look just a minute before. “I’m glad you’re here with him, by the way. It’s good.”

Tam blinks. “He’s in a _coma._ ”

Biana snorts slightly and moves over towards her brother, a sad look coming over her face. Tam looks at the three of them- Alden, Della, and Biana, all looking down at the still-unconscious Fitz- and sighs. 

Fitz is cold, and so is his family. 

/-/-/-/

His family is cold. 

Or, they aren’t, not really. Tiergan is stressed, constantly pacing and murmuring and hailing different people. Wylie’s working with his Mentor, attempting to figure out how to recreate what he did to Ruy. Linh is quiet and sad and eerily calm, making sure everyone takes care of themselves. They’re not rude, they’re _trying,_ but they don’t understand. 

Tam comes home six days after what Elwin has deemed The Shadow Incident. (He didn’t call it that out loud, but Tam had heard him muttering to himself as he prepped more elixirs.) He takes a shower, changes his clothes, and tries very hard not to scream.

It doesn’t work. Linh finds him curled up on the carpet of his room, shadows gathering around him like he’s some sort of magnet. She gives a small sigh and wraps her arms around him, hooking her chin over his shoulder. 

“Hey,” she murmurs. “You okay?”

Tam doesn’t know. There aren’t words to describe how he feels right now- it’s just a hollow emptiness in his stomach, a dryness in his throat. Like some vital part of him is missing. 

“I-” he starts. “He-” 

Linh waits patiently, some sort of twin bond magic telling her what he needs. Tam bites his lip and tries to think. The words spill out unbidden. 

“It should have been me.”

“Tam.” Linh says quietly. He shakes his head, because it’s the truth. It’s what he’s been trying to avoid this whole time, the words that have been in his head since Elwin hails him. 

“It should have been me. He’s almost _dead,_ and I- I wasn’t there to help.”

He feels tears prick the corners of his eyes, feels his sister’s arms tighten around him, but all he can see is Fitz, lying motionless on a hospital cot. All he can see is a Wanderling with dark brown bark and teal leaves, growing from the ground at an impossible rate. A sign that nothing will ever be the same again.

His family is cold, and so is Tam. 

/-/-/-/

Tam is cold.

Granted, that’s probably his fault for deciding to wear a sleeveless tunic, but it’s true all the same. The room he’s in is large, high-ceilinged and round, moonlight streaming through a round window high above. It offers no warmth and very little light, forcing Tam to squint even just to see his Mentor. And right now, inky strands of shadowflux are blocking his vision even further. 

“Good,” Lady Zillah says as the shadowflux drifts closer to him, her voice nearly disembodied in the darkness. “Now bring it closer- force it to obey you.”

Tam grimaces and concentrates, twisting the shadowflux in a tight spiral all around him. As it gets closer, it blocks out all the light, even from the skylight above. It crowds around him, whispering in voices Tam wishes he didn’t recognize. 

_Failure._

_Useless._

_Weak._

He bows his head and growls slightly, reaching for the shadowflux. It slips away with an eerie grace, the voices still whispering. 

_Failure._

_Useless._

_Weak._

Tam clenches his fists and draws it closer, forcing the shadows into a smaller circle. The voices seem to laugh. 

_Failure._

_Useless._

_Weak._

A new voice has joined, one so heartachingly familiar Tam wants to cover his ears to block it out. The words ring inside his head;

_Your fault. Your fault. Your fault._

With a final shout, he dispels the shadowflux, panting heavily. Lady Zillah steps forward wearing an utterly unimpressed look. 

“You control it,” she says cooly. “ _Not_ the other way around.”

Tam glares. “I know. I just- need a break for a second.”

Lady Zillah examines him, blue eyes narrowed, before she says, “You’re afraid.”

“What? No, I’m not.”

“You are,” Lady Zillah says calmly. “You’re afraid of shadowflux, and that’s why you cannot control it.”

Tam scowls. “I put an echo in my hand, didn’t I? I wasn’t afraid of it hurting me.”

“No. But you’re afraid of what it’s done to your friends.”

Tam crosses his arms, staring her down. “Can you blame me? You saw what happened to Sophie, what the echoes have done to her. Who _wouldn’t_ be afraid of that?”

“Someone who could control shadowflux,” Lady Zillah replies mildly. “Now try again.” Tam heaves a sigh and reaches for the shadowflux that still hangs in the air, feeling their freezing temperature without even touching them. 

Tam is cold, and so are the shadows. 

/-/-/-/

The shadows are cold. 

They gather around Tam’s feet as he sits in the Healing Center a week and a half after the attack, all alone except for sedated Fitz. Elwin’s taken Sophie out for a walk around Foxfire, a chance for her to see something other than the same four walls over and over again. Tam’s glad she’s getting out, but a small part of him wishes it was Fitz waking up, Fitz taking a walk, Fitz recovering. 

Even after all these days, Tam still doesn’t feel sure Fitz isn’t going to die. 

He traces an absentminded pattern on the bedsheet of Fitz’s cot, swirls and loops and simple lines. It’s a simple, boring activity, and Tam finds himself beginning to talk before he can help himself. 

“It’s weird, seeing you asleep all the time.”

Fitz doesn’t respond. Which is unsurprising, since he’s in a coma. Tam continues. 

“Biana said something when she was here yesterday, about how she’s starting to forget what you look like awake. I- I remember.” 

Tam twists his hands in his lap, uncertain why he’s even saying this. It’s not as if Fitz can hear him, or answer. 

“Your smile is annoyingly bright. You do this weird thing where you pinch the inside of your thumb when you’re thinking. You walk with this little hop sometimes, like you want to run but have to control yourself.” 

He tilts his head to the side, staring down at the floor and takes a deep breath. 

“Lady Zillah says I’m afraid, and… I guess I am.”

A soft snort emanates from where Fitz’s head lies on the pillow. “You, afraid of something? That’d be a first.”

Tam jerks his head up. Fitz’s eyes are open, staring straight at him. “I- Fitz?”

Fitz grins at him and sits up, wincing slightly. “Hey.”

And all around the healing center, the shadows recede, filling the room with light. Tam blinks and grins back at Fitz- _Fitz! Here! Awake!-_ and something in his chest does a little flip. 

Shadows are cold, but Fitz’s smile is warm. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love!


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